A wide variety of wet wipes dispensing containers are available in the market today. These containers may be broadly categorized into two classes: reach-in and pop-up. Within the pop-up category, some containers provide a stack of flat wipes, which are interfolded, and which are most commonly dispensed from a tub. Other containers provide a continuous roll of wipes material, intermittently perforated along lines transverse to the direction of the roll to define a series of wipes integrally interconnected at their edges, and which are dispensed from an upright cylindrical container. The pop-up style containers have gained popularity because the wet wipe is more readily available to the user. Although there is a greater opportunity for the wipes in a pop-up style container to at least partially dry out, improvements in container design have mitigated this problem.
However, with pop-up style dispensing containers, there are occasions where the pop-up feature fails and the user needs to reach into the container to retrieve the next wipe. Unfortunately, current pop-up containers do not have openings that (1) are tight enough to help minimize instances in which a succeeding wipe is inadvertently dispensed with the leading wipe; (2) are loose enough to optimally allow the succeeding wipe to at least partially pass through the opening before the leading wipe ends contact with the succeeding wipe; (3) are tight enough to help hold the succeeding wipe in a “pop-up” position rather than falling back into the container; (4) enable a user to comfortably reach through the opening, such as reaching into the container if the succeeding wipe fails to “pop-up” and instead falls back into the container; and (5) are small enough to allow minimal air circulation into the wipe container to prevent substantial dry out of the wipes within the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,523,690 to Buck et al. discloses a wet wipe container with a flexible orifice to address some of these issues. However, the dispensing means taught by Buck are limited to those having a Penetration Index (see below) of 600 grams or less. It was thought at that time that a Penetration Index above 600 grams was sub-optimal in terms of maximizing the ability to help achieve the five objectives listed above. However, it has been discovered that in certain circumstances, due to advances in the composition and dispensing of wet wipes, that a Penetration Index of 600 grams or less is not always desirable.